dtcamero wrote:

A lot has been made in these fora about the word “efficiency” as a term that implies time and effort being used smartly to get to language fluency fastest. In practical application, these efficiency-focused contributors’ use the efficiency argument to suggest techniques that engender quick results over other techniques that tend towards lifestyle alteration and 24/7 immersion. I would argue however that these contributors' two ideas of efficiency are actually at opposition with one another.

First a clarification of terms:

Within forum contributors’ approaches to language study, a dichotomous relationship seems to exist between two constellations of ideas that we find ourselves drawn to, efficiency vs. context:

The efficiency-focused sphere would include ideas like bi-lingual dictionaries, only using media that is level-appropriate, textbooks and classes, core vocab study, not doing rtk3, and generally using English up until an “advanced” level.

The context-heavy sphere would include ideas like going monolingual early on, sleep immersion, exclusively  exposing oneself to L2 media, sentence cards/MCDs/Subs2SRS  as opposed to core vocab, and generally excluding English as much as possible.

this dichotomy as we are using it has an interesting economic corollary in the idea of ‘utility.’ Again, quoting the wiki: In economics, utility is a measure of relative satisfaction. In other words, it is a term referring to the total satisfaction received by a consumer from consuming a good or service.

In other words, if you do ‘X’, you get ‘Y’ positive outcome of utility (for this topic I am using the term to mean moving closer to fluency)

For those of us without a background in macroeconomics, or as a refresher:
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%99%90% … 9%E7%94%A8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility

One of the cornerstones of commonly accepted, non-contentious economic theory is the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility:
“The law of diminishing marginal utility is at the heart of the explanation of numerous economic phenomena, including time preference and the value of goods. . . . The law says, first, that the marginal utility of each (homogenous) unit decreases as the supply of units increases (and vice versa)” Polleit, Thorsten (2011-02-11) What Can the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility Teach Us?, Mises Institute

http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/x38 … ility5.jpg

Forgive my crudely drawn diagram, but one can see that while the context-heavy language learners spend more and more time immersed, not in English, etc… they get less and less marginal benefit from each ‘unit’ of study. However, as they spend much more time in their L2 (using  monolingual definitions, doing SRS with context/media, only being exposed to L2 media, sleep & general immersing, overall lifestyle adjustment) they have a much higher utility overall.

The converse is also obviously true, and while efficiency-focused study probably ‘feels’ like it is producing great results, (which it is per unit of study) the eventual outcome is much less utility overall. Possibly the most telling implication of this analysis is that the most efficient method of language study possible will in fact achieve zero utility and therefore never reach fluency.

It's not either/or, it's both, and integrating strategies to make your learning more efficient is superior for long-term learning. The reason it seems either/or is because those advocating the extreme end think in polar terms. The diminishing returns you get comes from overlearning rather than using efficient strategies such as spaced retrieval. The short-term benefits at the expense of long-term learning comes from seeking ‘fun’ only, without metacognitive thinking, and avoiding strategies and deliberate study at the onset.

Last edited by nest0r (2011 August 19, 4:32 pm)

Asriel wrote:

It's not focused study vs. just have fun all the time study. It's doing focused study and then immersing yourself.  It's go to class and study, then go home and watch a drama.

Ya I think that's something that we all can agree upon... the context people i'm sure are doing anki reps also, etc. But I'm referring specifically to the more contentious points on this forum:

dtcamero wrote:

The efficiency-focused sphere would include ideas like bi-lingual dictionaries, only using media that is level-appropriate, textbooks and classes, core vocab study, not doing rtk3, and generally using English up until an “advanced” level.
The context-heavy sphere would include ideas like going monolingual early on, sleep immersion, exclusively  exposing oneself to L2 media, sentence cards/MCDs/Subs2SRS  as opposed to core vocab, and generally excluding English as much as possible.

The difference in terms of actual L2 interaction is huge, not to mention the significance of staying in the L2 for a longer period of time. Yes most people probably fall somewhere between the extremes, tending towards one or the other. But I'd say there is an oppositional relationship between these constellations of ideas, so therefore they can be essentialized and analyzed in comparison to one another.

Last edited by dtcamero (2011 August 19, 6:21 pm)

wow that was an unusually incoherent and rambling response nestor... I must have struck a nerve. ;P

a few points of interest:

nestor wrote:

the extremists are on the other end

you sound like an efficiency-centric Rush Limbaugh saying its only liberals that incite violence.

nestor wrote:

Huh? You mean clozing passages of text? I don't recall calling that MCD when I came up with it, but thanks for mentioning

if anyone came up with clozing text in anki it was Damien Elmes, but truly this claim sounds like people who say Columbus discovered the western hemisphere. i think the pique actually comes from using your bf khatz's nomenclature :D

seriously i didn't use your name and I think you're taking the OP rather personally... it wasn't directed at you.

Last edited by dtcamero (2011 August 19, 7:07 pm)

well if we are getting personal here...

could you please stop making these enourmous redundant citations before your comment? Everyone knows what what written and it clogs up the forum.

also if you're going to post repeatedly on every topic, a teaspoon of humor would make the nestor medicine go down a bit easier perhaps...

dtcamero wrote:

well if we are getting personal here...

could you please stop making these enourmous redundant citations before your comment? Everyone knows what what written and it clogs up the forum.

also if you're going to post repeatedly on every topic, a teaspoon of humor would make the nestor medicine go down a bit easier perhaps...

Just because people don't find your resorting to tasteless, juvenile insults amusing doesn't mean they don't have a sense of humour. It's you, not us.

And I know you'd prefer it if I didn't quote you, people like you often prefer to insult and then edit out their insults after their target has read their comments.

nest0r wrote:

You'll find that the only dichotomy is: Faction 1: Do both. Faction 2: No, just be extreme and avoid English, SRSing, classes, etc.

that's pretty much as i see it.

everyone here molds what they see into a workable study program with varying rates of success that each person finds satisfactory to themselves.

the groups aren't even split into such hard lines as the OP states. there are many people here who promote textbooks but not classes. some who prefer a mix of both level-appropriate media and advanced media. some people who SRS sentences with core.

In the thread where I was first introduced to the four strands, I remember you said:

dtcamero wrote:

what are these professors going to do for you that is so helpful? get you onto a better textbook like Genki? help you memorize verb conjugation tables? explain a handful of idioms? have an awkward hour of forced incorrect japanese? these techniques are bunk and you just need to immerse with and study actual jmedia in the wild. the irony is that khatz doesn't need to be smarter than a prof because The Japanese People are doing the teaching, and largely know what they're talking about.

Now, I'm not necessarily talking about classes here, but more about the focused learning that they bring you. These techniques are not "bunk," nor are they ineffective. They bring a lot to the table that help you pick up on things better in the wild.

Sitting in class and doing homework is well and fine, but you'll learn better if you supplement it with some outside immersion. If you're just immersing and not doing any focused study, you're not going to advance too quickly. If I were to choose one of the extremes, it'd probably be the all-focused study, because you're hitting more of the "strands," as it were. At least at the beginning stages...

But I don't think anyone here is advocating one of the extremes, so I'm not even sure what this discussion is about?

First up, dtcamero, your OP presented an interesting theory. Thanks for writing it.

I think no one is saying that less immersion is better than more. What it comes down to for me, is quality of immersion. I want high quality (high effectiveness) immersion multiplied by a lot of time. To present an overly simplified equation:

R(result) = T(time) X E(effectiveness).

To me, something like AJATT (an extreme(ish) example of your context heavy sphere), maximises T but E is lower than it needs to be. It may still get results but the time required is huge and time is a valuable resource.

Then on the other end, you have people who supposedly only spend time memorizing grammar rules from textbooks (does anyone actually do this?). These people are likely to think E is high, but it isn't because they are neither training useful (real) language skills nor learning useful information quickly (which would increase E). T will likely be low too due to boredom and low motivation. Then again, people only have a certain amount of T available to them. Increasing E is vital.

So how do you maximise E in a way that doesn't demotivate you from spending sufficient T or motivates you to spend more T. This is the most important question to me. For me the most effective method (high E) is simply consuming the target language in a comprehensible way. The higher the quantity of comprehensible target language entering your brain per unit of time the better. This is why I recommend:
-bilingual dictionaries (make content comprehensible quickly and without confusion)
-parallel texts (same reason)
-phrase books with translated example sentences (same reason)
-audiobooks (increase comprehension and E of audio content)
-comprehensible audio content (higher E value)
-massive vocab learning (increase comprehension and therefore increase E)
-search for grammar explanations only when strictly necessary (increases E but is time consuming)
etc etc.

There's also a bunch of things (from both of your hypothetical spheres) that I recommend against because their E value is low and I'd be getting better bang(R) for my time(T) by focusing on things with high E value.

I think it's worth mentioning that apart from the vocabulary learning, my study is immersion (your so-called context heavy sphere), but I'm using my L1 when necessary to increase comprehension (your so called efficiency-focused sphere)

nadiatims wrote:

I want high quality (high effectiveness) immersion multiplied by a lot of time. To present an overly simplified equation:

R(result) = T(time) X E(effectiveness). [...]

That's a quite interesting equation that can perhaps be applied to anything we want to learn; one thing I would point to improve it though is that E is not all about the quality of materials being used but it also depends on personal factors — that is, someone who's applying a lot of time and using the most appropriate materials possible could still not be achieving higher Rs than others doing the same. Maybe we could expand E like this:

E(effectiveness) = Q(quality of material) × F(student's focus) × S(student's speed)

Note that focus and speed are separate variables; you can have a lot of focus and be slow, or be fast and have no focus at all. (And focus and speed also depend on things like adequate sleep, food, and mental hygiene; well, it's possible to detail the equation even further, but I think this is enough for now.)

Last edited by gdaxeman (2011 August 20, 10:07 pm)

dtcamero wrote:

However, as [context-heavy language learners] spend much more time in their L2 (using  monolingual definitions, doing SRS with context/media, only being exposed to L2 media, sleep & general immersing, overall lifestyle adjustment) they have a much higher utility overall

Just because you spend much more time on a task than someone else, it does not mean you get more done.

dtcamero wrote:

Possibly the most telling implication of this analysis is that the most efficient method of language study possible will in fact achieve zero utility and therefore never reach fluency.

This just proves that your analysis is wrong (reductio ad absurdum). The most efficient method of language study will make you fluent in less time than any other method (by definition).

Last edited by iSoron (2011 August 21, 7:05 am)

Okay, this is basically a tl;dr version of nadiatims' and isoron's points for dtcamero using the OP econ example.  Maybe someone who knows econ will follow with something sensible before that blog fellow tries to use dtcamero's graphs to sell his stuff as "scientifically proven". haha

dtcamero wrote:

Forgive my crudely drawn diagram, but one can see that while the context-heavy language learners spend more and more time immersed, not in English, etc… they get less and less marginal benefit from each ‘unit’ of study. However, as they spend much more time in their L2 [...]they have a much higher utility overall.

Isn't drawing a graph to prove your conclusion a bit backwards?  Why would the respective curves necessarily look like that for language learning?

What is the bottom axis? study units per day?  per year? It's difficult to understand what diminishing returns would mean without knowing the time frame. (daily physical limitations? knowledge saturation? limitations inherent in activity? increasingly rare content?)

Why did you draw marginal utility so high relative to total utility at the start? [Isn't the utility of the first unit = its mu?] If mu starts high then wouldn't utility rise steeply, intercept mu and keep increasing (so long as mu is positive)? It  seems more likely that mu of (overall) language learning would be flat (and even increasing at times). If diminishing returns applies at some high number of study units, the utility curve would only start to flatten out then.

So a learner (who has nothing else going on in life...) would maximize their utility by studying the number of units at which utility peaks, right?  And any learner who chooses to exceed that number of hours would be considered to be acting irrationally. They'd get almost no increased benefit from more units of study. At high units of inefficient study, mu would probably hover above zero and utility would effectively plateau.  Wasting time, right?

If someone were to choose a super high number of study hours, then physical exhaustion and boredom might mean mu would actually drop below zero and the utility curve would descend. They'd be worse off.

The converse is also obviously true, and while efficiency-focused study probably ‘feels’ like it is producing great results, (which it is per unit of study) the eventual outcome is much less utility overall. Possibly the most telling implication of this analysis is that the most efficient method of language study possible will in fact achieve zero utility and therefore never reach fluency.

huh?  You've got apples and oranges on the same axis, don't you? What if someone did many efficient hours, or a few inefficient hours?  And, as mentioned, the graph as drawn doesn't seem to reflect reality.

"eventual outcome"? "less utility overall"?  We're looking at choices of utility vs study units for a given time frame, aren't we?  So why are you talking about time as a variable with "eventual outcome"?  Learning doesn't have static utility. (5 Day 1 hours won't have the same utility as 5 Day 100 hrs. Likewise with 100 hrs in Yr 1 vs  Yr 2.)

The last sentence doesn't make any sense to me either. Surely you're not pointing out that someone who studies 0 hours won't have any utility?

Here are a few more basic problems I see:

Units/activities Language learning isn't homogeneous units. Each learning activity would require its own graph. A learner needs to determine how to allocate his time between different learning activities. Also, the activities are inter-dependent, so the graphs for each activity would change as the combination of activities change. And each individual's graph for each activity would look different. 

In your example, why lump two different types of study into one function if you're trying to compare them? You might instead draw separate graphs for your 'efficient' and 'less efficient' learners. (This is  nadiatims' point: her E is MU, her T is study units, her R is total utility). So mu for efficient learners is high and probably flat therefore utility rises steeply to high levels. A less efficient learner would have a lower and diminishing mu with utility increasing very gradually and only reaching the same max level at many many hours.

Opportunity cost The notion of opportunity cost is at the core of criticisms of "24/7 of anything L2" type immersion. You'd have to factor in utility foregone by not using other methods with higher mu.

Utility You've arbitrarily decided utility=satisfaction=fluency (language improvement) which seems problematic. It suggests some kind of objective measure of skill. Isn't utility more about individual subjective perception of benefit or satisfaction? (i.e. a higher price on a demand curve doesn't mean the product is better.) Just b/c a learner is willing to spend hours study b/c they 'feel' it's beneficial, doesn't mean it's actually effective. Aren't you starting with your conclusion that time = fluency?  So you're back at square one: how effective are all those hours of background listening? As others have pointed out, effectiveness isn't only a function of time.

If it were utility=satisfaction=enjoyment in your example, then perhaps people seeking to maximize fun would indeed select a higher number of hours. Those hours aren't necessarily effective, though. Maybe you could look at productivity curves rather than utility curves?

Time A learner's graph for each activity would keep changing over time depending on their level and what combination of activities they've previously used. Also, not all activities would have diminishing returns. Some would be flat, others would increase.

Take listening: An absolute beginner can use incomprehensible audio to learn to hear unfamiliar sounds, so their mu might be flat and then quickly drop off.  When they are more proficient [supplementing with explicit learning], they'll start off with higher utility and have a long wavy stretch of increasing returns as their comprehension builds on itself. In between those stages, listening to hours of incomprehensible input would have low mu and total utility would start lower and build only very slowly.

Indifference curves Just for fun, imagine indifference curves for different constant utility (fluency/proficiency) levels. Pretend there's only efficient and non-efficient learning methods to choose from. ;-) The budget line here would be a learner's available time (whose -45 slope wouldn't change). You can shift the indifference curve out for greater desired proficiency and shift the time line out for folks with more time. So what kind of results does that get you?

You're going to pick the combo where the fluency curve is tangential to the time budget line. It wouldn't make sense to select a point on a time line with more non-efficient units b/c it would put you on a lower fluency curve. And because efficient methods are more well ... efficient, ;-)  the optimum ratio (given the indifference curve shape and fixed time line angle) will have more efficient study units than inefficient. (Now ... can we draw indifference curves in multiple dimensions to reflect all combinations of actual activities?)  :-)

This is kinda fun, but econ isn't my thing and I don't really think it works for overall language learning beyond outlining relationships which are already pretty straightforward. Folks here often talk more specifically about diminishing returns (based on decreasing frequency) of large pre-made vocab lists or of knowing massive numbers of kanji. That makes more sense to me.

edits in [ ]

Last edited by Thora (2011 August 22, 1:44 pm)

iSoron wrote:

dtcamero wrote:

Possibly the most telling implication of this analysis is that the most efficient method of language study possible will in fact achieve zero utility and therefore never reach fluency.

This just proves that your analysis is wrong (reductio ad absurdum). The most efficient method of language study will make you fluent in less time than any other method (by definition).

I agree. However, to be charitable, I assume that dtcamero meant that the apparently most efficient method will have little real-world application and demotivate the learner. Nevertheless, if this analysis is correct, then we reach the exact same conclusion. The apparently most efficient method is not actually the most efficient method. As you (iSoron) so well put it, the most efficient method is the method that "will make you fluent in less time than any other method."

@dtcamero
I appreciate your eagerness to challenge theories and go against convention. However, whenever doing so, be ready for criticism. When a new theory is offered, it is reasonable to expect the new theory to be barraged with criticisms. If the theory is good, it will withstand the criticisms and replace its predecessors. If not, its strengths and weaknesses will be made clear. These observations are all obvious, but it is helpful to be reminded of them when we feel like we're under attack.

Now, I won't make any assumptions regarding your background, but I will mention that many bright, young university students share a similar mindset as you. They learn a few basic concepts, and then begin challenging longstanding theories. Afterwards, there are two general outcomes. Either they become dogmatic and simple-minded, or they realize the nauseating complexity and nuance of the theories they once challenged. The second group begins to realize the amount work that goes into a major theory (such as a theory language acquisition). Even looking at the theories on language acquisition advocated on these boards, pages upon pages and threads upon threads have been devoted to their development. Despite all of this work, many of these theories are plagued with unsupported generalizations and assumptions, lack of evidence, and flawed reasoning. It makes you realize how its a grandiose dream to imagine that you can take down such theories with just a few shallow criticisms. I know this because I speak as someone who experienced this conversion, and I continue to see this in the students whom I now teach.

Anyway, I typically don't speak so candidly on internet forums, especially since I often have no personal connections to any of the individuals posting on such forums. However, it'd be a waste of talent if you fell into the first group of intelligent, but dogmatic and narrow-minded people. Therefore, I broke out of my habit, and choose to post in such a personal tone. I hope you find my post useful in some way.